Exterior Design

Short and Stocky

On first impressions, the Cubitek Mini Tank looks functional and business-like - eye-catching and sexy, it is definitely not. The casing, which is made out of anodized aluminum, has a sort of “brushed aluminum look” about it, which certainly ups the cool factor a bit, but overall, the Mini Tank certainly won’t send heart beats racing.

On the flip side, the Mini Tank is sturdily built and has a good feeling of solidity about it. We also liked that it has no less than three fans - a single intake front and two exhaust fans. How many Mini-ITX casings have this many fans? And as you'll see from the following photos, the Mini Tank has all the basic ingredients required to setup a decent gaming rig.

Before we delve within the chassis, we would like to point out that the side access panels are of an unconventional design for two reasons. Firstly, the screws used to secure the side panels aren't thumbscrews, but they have just enough girth to unscrew with your fingers. However, if they are accidentally tightened too much, you can't use a normal Philips screwdriver as the screw heads are compatible with only a torx driver. Why not use proper thumbscrews or standard screws? We've no clue. Secondly, the panels themselves aren't the typical side panels that sit fairly well even without securing them in place. The Mini-Tank's side panels just sit on the sides and will require careful handling and alignment to screw them in place once you remove them. These aren't grave issues, but they are troublesome enough that we had to make a mention.